by Blake Snyder
BREAK INTO THREE (85)
... Hazzah! The solution!
Thanks to the characters found in the B story (the love story), thanks to all the conversations discussing theme in the B story, and thanks to the hero's last best effort to discover a solution to beat the bad guys who've been closing in and winning in the A story, lo! the answer is found!!
Both in the external story (the A story) and the internal story (the B story), which now meet and intertwine, the hero has prevailed, passed every test, and dug deep to find the solution. Now all he has to do is apply it.
The classic fusion of A and B is the hero getting the clue from "the girl" that makes him realize how to solve both — beating the bad guys and winning the heart of his beloved.
An idea to solve the problem has emerged.
The world of synthesis is at hand.
FINALE (85-110)
The finale is Act Three. This is where we wrap it up. It's where the lessons learned are applied. It's where the character tics are mastered. It's where A story and B story end in triumph for our hero. It's the turning over of the old world and a creation of a new world order — all thanks to the hero, who leads the way based on what he experienced in the upside-down, antithetical world of Act Two.
The finale entails the dispatching of all the bad guys, in ascending order. Lieutenants and henchman die first, then the boss. The chief source of "the problem" — a person or thing — must be dispatched completely for the new world order to exist. And again, think of all the examples in the movies you've screened of how this is true. The finale is where a new society is born. It's not enough for the hero to triumph, he must change the world. The finale is where it happens. And it must be done in an emotionally satisfying way.
FINAL IMAGE (110)
As stated earlier, the final image in a movie is the opposite of the opening image. It is your proof that change has occurred and that it's real. If you don't have that final image, or you can't see how it applies, go back and check your math — there is something not adding up in Act Two.
SUMMARY
So now that I've laid out these 15 beats for you, and used examples like What's Up, Doc?, I'm sure all you hip, young screenwriting whipper-snappers are saying, yeah, right old man. Maybe this applied in your day, but we don't need it anymore. We eschew the need to "like" a hero (we dig Lara Croft!!!) and those boring old story beats are passe. Who needs 'em? What about Memento!!
Have I grasped the basic gestalt of your objection?
If so, and though I've tried to pepper my examples with many newer movies, like Legally Blonde, you still may not believe me when I say this stuff applies. Still. Always.
So for you nay-sayers, who say nay, let me use an example from my genre, PG Comedy, that shows how these beats apply in the modern world you need to master.
Oh, and btw, screw Memento!
Let's use a $IOO million Box Office (B.O.) hit. Would that satisfy you? Let's look at a great poster and logline, with a great star that satisfies all the beats in the BS2. Let's take a look at the Sandra Bullock comedy, Miss Congenially.
To start, it's got a great title. And its logline — an ugly duckling FBI agent goes undercover as a contestant to catch a killer at the American Miss pageant — certainly satisfies the four elements from Chapter One: irony, compelling picture, audience and cost, and a killer title. Let's see if it beats out according to the BS2?
MISS CONGENIALITY___________________
(A $IOO million hit comedy in 15 beats)
Opening Image: Miss Congeniality opens on Sandra Bullock's character in flashback as a playground tough. The image is: Sandra surrounded by boys. Sandra is a tomboy and she's beating them up. Sandra has issues. When we CUT TO: The Present, Sandra is still surrounded by boys, still a tomboy, but she's an FBI agent, at home in the world of Men — kind of.
Theme Stated: When Sandra declares that she doesn't need to worry about being "feminine" because she's an FBI agent, that statement is the movie's theme. But is this statement true? We shall see. The movie will explore the subject of femininity. It is an essay on the pros and cons of being tough and a woman. Can you be both? That's what this movie is about.
The Set-up: By page IO we have met everyone who will appear in the A story of the movie and "set up" the world. We've met Benjamin Bratt, whom Sandra kind of likes. But she is off his radar; he likes "classy" girls that Sandra scoffs at. We also meet Sandra's boss (Ernie
Hudson) and the world of the FBI. It's tough, a boy's club, and Sandra fits right in. And though she is a wheezing nerd with bad hair and no social life, she seems happy — a classic set-up, with a sense a storm's about to hit. It can't stay like this. Stasis equals death.
Catalyst: A classic call to adventure. News comes that there's been a murder threat at the American Miss Pageant. We also meet those in charge of the pageant, Candice Bergen and her son, and their "Bert Parks," William Shatner and his hairpiece — and a very sporty model it is! To stop the murders, they hatch a plan that calls for a female agent to go undercover as a contestant. After going through a database of every available female FBI agent... they pick Sandra.
Debate: But can she pull it off? That is the debate question of this section. It is answered after several funny moments with Sandra's mentor (Michael Caine), who agrees to take on the challenge of turning Sandra into a sexy girl.
Break into Two: Sandra strides from her makeover looking hot, hot, hot in her mini-skirt. Even Benjamin is impressed. Then she stumbles. This isn't going to be easy, but Sandra is ready to try. So let the act break and Act Two begin!
Fun and Games: Classic promise of the premise, including all those funny trailer moments where a pistol-packing FBI agent is undercover at the American Miss pageant. Sandra's water-glass talent show demonstration ends as she leaps off the stage to nab a suspect, etc. The fish is out of water and the clash leads to jokes. This is why we came to this movie. This is what lured us when we saw the poster. And it's fun!
B Story: The love story here is actually between Sandra and the girl contestants. Why? Because the theme of the movie is about femininity and Sandra does not know this world. It is full of funhouse mirror versions of femininity — each contestant has a talent and a quirk and each, to Sandra's surprise, needs and likes her. It is Sandra's interaction with the girls of Girl World that carries the message of the picture and is its heart. And while Sandra also gets to kiss Benjamin by the movie's end, it will be because of the girls that she learns and grows and discovers her feminine side.
Midpoint: The fun and games are over as a new threat to the pageant is announced and Sandra's stakes are raised. We have seen all the fun stuff (Sandra and her water glasses), met the suspects, had the joy of watching a tomboy interact with the girls she once thought odd. Now the real trouble starts.
Bad Guys Close In: Sandra's doubts about her femininity grow, her conflict with her mentor deepens, and, in this case, actual bad guys move closer, unseen in the shadows of the pageant. Though no one has died, there's a list of suspects.
All Is Lost: Told by her boss to stand down, Sandra refuses. She has a lead on a suspect. But her boss delivers an ultimatum: Either quit the case or be fired. Sandra chooses to stay on at the pageant. Thus, she has reached a classic All Is Lost moment: She is worse off than when this movie started! The whiff of death is the death of her identity. Without being "the Girl with the Badge" — who is she? Not even her mentor (Caine) can help, but he does give her a last weapon: a new dress.
Dark Night of the Soul: Sandra arrives for the pageant finale and is a total mess. She's lost in the netherworld of being neither FBI agent nor full-fledged woman. What to do?
Break into Three: With help from friends she's made in Girl World, Sandra is put back together by the other contestants for the pageant finale. Embraced by what was once foreign to her, and confident that the girls really care, Sandra is revived. By helping Sandra, the girls also help themselves.
Finale: The pageant itself. A classic bit of
synthesis occurs when Sandra hangs in during the talent portion of her show by using her FBI skills on stage with Benjamin. The two worlds are fused together, answering the question raised in Theme Stated: Yes! She can be both tough and sexy. Sandra now catches the bad guys, Gandice and her son. (Candice's warped view of her own femininity is what caused her to sabotage the pageant.) Sandra has proven herself to be a woman among women. And she's brought the bad guys to justice.
Final Image: Miss Congeniality closes with the opposite of the opening image: Sandra is surrounded by women. Sandra is awarded the coveted Miss Congeniality Award by her fellows — quite a change!
The Real Happy Ending: $IOO million in domestic B.O.
Now that you know that it works, you'll start to see how these beats can apply to your script.
EXERCISES
1. Type up the BS2 and carry it with you everywhere. Whenever you have an idle moment, think about a favorite movie. Can the beats of that movie fit into neat, one-sentence descriptions of each of the 15 blanks?
2. Go back to Blockbuster (boy, are they tired of you by now) and check out the 6-12 movies in the genre of the movie you're writing. Sit and watch as the beats of these films are magically filled into the blanks of the BS2-
3. For extra credit, look at Memento, Yes, it's an entertaining movie; yes, it even falls into the category of genre "Dude with a Problem." Does it also match the beats of the BS2? Or is it just a gimmick that cannot be applied to any other movie? HINT: For all the hullabaloo surrounding Memento, guess how much it made?
And if you want to seriously debate the value of Memento in modern society, please go ahead and contact me at the e-mail address provided in Chapter One. But be ready for one hell of an argument from me!! I know how much Memento made.
If we are very lucky we find a guru. These are people we meet along the way that have more wisdom than we do and, to our surprise, offer to share what they know. Mike Cheda is the first guru I met in the screenwriting business and for 20 years he has continued to amaze me with his ability to spot, understand, and fix the problems of any screen story.
I first met Mike when he was head of development for Barry &. Enright. Mike also worked in that capacity for Disney and was VP of Development at HBO and Once Upon A Time Productions. Over the years, Mike has developed hundreds of movie and television projects — often from initial concept to final cut. He has not only been an executive for these and other companies, but is himself a writer (something more development execs should try) whose Chill Factor starred Cuba Gooding, Jr. and the Dash Riprock-named Skeet Ulrich.
No matter what incarnation Mike Cheda appears under — executive, writer, or producer — wherever he goes, his magic story touch is the stuff of legend. Of the many scalps on his belt, Mike is the guy credited with cracking the story for the Patrick Swayze movie, Next of Kin. Though it was a spec script purchase in the million-dollar range, Next of Kin had
problems that needed tweaking before it could get a green light — and it was Mike who solved them. Mike even showed me the place where this event occurred. One day we were taking a time-out from a story we were trying to break, bowed by despair and self-loathing over not knowing how. While walking through Century City, Mike stopped at the hallowed piece of sidewalk.
It was here, he said, Jacob Bronowski-like, during a similarly meditative walk when his brain was filled with all the wrong ways to fix Next of Kin, that he'd come up with the right way. "It just hit me. Cowboys and Indians!" And indeed when he presented this simple construct to the producers of Next of Kin, that's exactly what guided the rewrite. In the course of his career, Mike has had many such moments. Like some String Theory physicist, he is always working on perfecting his story skills — often in ways that seem otherworldly, but almost always prove to be inspired.
So when I ran into Mike recently and asked what new ideas he'd come up with, he pulled out an artist's sketchbook from his satchel and opened it with gleeful enthusiasm. The two halves of the sketchpad, its spiral binding running down the middle, offered a larger-than-normal field. Across both pages, he had drawn three straight lines, demarcating four horizontal rows. And in the middle of these four equal rows were cut-out squares of paper, each was a beat of the screen story he was working on.
"It's portable," Mike cackled like a mad scientist.
"Ah!" I said. "The Board."
And we both nodded with the respect.
The Board.
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
The Board is perhaps the most vital piece of equipment a screenwriter needs to have at his disposal — next to paper, pen, and lap-lop. And over the years, whenever I've walked into someone's office and seen one on the wall, I have to smile because I now know what it is — and the migraine-in-progress it denotes. Boards come in all types and sizes: blackboards smeared with chalk, cork boards with index cards and pushpins to hold the beats in place, and even pages of a yellow legal pad Scotch-taped to hotel walls while on location — in the attempt to re-work a script on the fly. The Board is universal. And yet of the screenwriting courses I know of, I've never really heard this useful tool discussed.
So damn it, let's talk about it!
I saw my first one on Mike Gheda's office wall at Barry & Enright 20 years ago. Naif that I was — though I'd already been paid actual money to write a few screenplays — I'd never seen The Board, nor could I imagine what it would possibly be used for. Didn't you simply sit down and start and let the scenes fall where they may? Didn't you just... let er rip?
That's what I always did.
But thanks to the Chairman of The Board, Mike Cheda, I learned not only the vital importance of planning a script by using The Board, but how to use it to supercharge my results. Since that time I have employed it often. In my case, I use a big corkboard that I can hang on the wall and stare at. I like to get a pack of index cards and a box of push pins and stick up my beats on The Board, and move em around at will. I have many decks of these index cards, rubber banded and filed by project, of scripts written and yet-to-be. And all I need to do to revisit any of these scripts is lake out the pack, deal 'em up on The Board, take a look to know where I left off— and figure out if I need to call Mike.
The Board is a way for you to "see" your movie before you start writing. It is a way to easily test different scenes, story arcs, ideas, bits of dialogue and story rhythms, and decide whether they work — or if they just plain suck. And though it is not really writing, and though your perfect plan may be totally abandoned in the white heat of actually executing your screenplay, it is on The Board where you can work out the kinks of the story before you start. It is your way to visualize a well-plotted movie, the one tool I know of that can help you build the perfect beast.
But here are the most beneficial things about The Board:
a. It's tactile and...
b. It wastes a lot of time!
The exercise of working The Board uses things other than your fingers on a keyboard. Pens, index cards, pushpins. All things you can touch, and see, and play with at will.
And did I mention how much time you can waste doing all this?
You can spend a whole afternoon at Staples picking out just the right-sized board. You can spend the next morning figuring out where it goes on your wall. You can even go mobile with the index cards. You can pop that deck in your pocket, head out to Starbucks, take the rubber band off, and sit there and shuffle your cards for hours, laying out scene sequences, set pieces, and whammies. It's great!
And the best part is, while you're doing all this seemingly ridiculous, time-wasting work, your story is seeping into your subconscious in a whole other way. Have a great piece of dialogue? Write it on a card and stick it on The Board where you think it might go. Have an idea for a chase sequence? Deal up them cards and take a looksee.
And talk about creating a pressure-free zone! No more blank pages. It's all just little bitty index card-sized pages. And who can't fill up an index card?
All well and good b
ut how does it apply to me? you ask. Me! Me! Me!
All right, let's talk about you and your Board.
FIRST CARDS FIRST
Once you've bought the size and type of board you feel most comfortable with, put it up on the wall and have a look. It's blank, isn't it? Now take three long strips of masking tape and make four equal rows. Or if you're more daring, use a magic marker instead. Either way it looks like this:
Row #1 is Act One (pages 1-25); row #2 represents the first half of Act Two up to the midpoint (25-55); row #3 is the midpoint to the Break into Act Three (55-85); and row #4 is Act Three to the movie's final image (85-110).
It looks so easy, doesn't it? Well, it is. That's the whole idea. And after a couple of go-rounds using this tool, it will start to feel familiar, too. Soon, like a slot car racetrack, the corners and open stretches of this imaginary concourse will become well-worn and pleasing geography.
You will quickly find that the ends of each row are the hinges of your story. The Break into Two, the midpoint, and the Break into Three are where the turns are; each appears at the end of rows 1, 2, and 3. To my mind, this fits my mental map of what a screenplay is perfectly. And if you buy Syd Field's premise that each of the turns spins the story in a new direction, you see exactly where it occurs.
Now in my hot little hand I also have a crisp, clean, brand new pack of index cards. (Oh, it's fun to unwrap the cellophane!) And now with the help of a fistful of Pentels (not a Clint Eastwood movie) and my box of multi-colored pushpins, I'm ready to put up my very first card. To waste as much time as possible, I usually neatly write the title of the movie on one such card and stick it up at the very top and take a step back. In a few weeks, or months, the Board is going to be covered with little bits of paper, arrows, color-coding, and cryptic messages. For now, it's clean.
Enjoy it while you can, lads.
Okay. Time to start.
Although you can write anything you want on these index cards, they are primarily used to denote scenes. By the time we're done, you'll have 40 of these — count em, 40 — and no more. But for now, in this rough stage, we'll hang loose. Use as many as you want. And if you run out, you get to go back to Staples and waste more time — so go for it!